THE END OF HEGEL'S LOGIC: ABSOLUTE IDEA AS ABSOLUTE METHOD

Transcription

1 THE END OF HEGEL'S LOGIC: ABSOLUTE IDEA AS ABSOLUTE METHOD Angelica Nuzzo* The last chapter of Hegel's Wissenschafl der Logik is a test for the entire preceding logical development and, thereby, a test for the success of the book as a whole. It is only at this point-namely, at the conclusion of the itinerary of pure speculative-dialectical thinking-that it is possible (and necessary) for Hegel to demonstrate that the logic which has been immanently developed in its successive moments is, indeed, the speculative science laying the foundations of the philosophical system and leading on to a Realphilosophie. The aim of the final test taking place in the chapter on method is twofold. First, Hegel needs to show that the logical process now approaching its conclusion can by no means be exploited by a non-dialectical way of thinking. In other words, he needs to prove that only dialectical thinking can use or appropriate the logical process it has developed up to this point in order to construct knowledge and produce science. The claim to be justified is that the foregoing succession of logical forms is, indeed, the method of speculative thinking, and of this thinking alone. Second, Hegel needs to demonstrate that the logic, as a concluded and complete discipline, is a system and can therefore lead forward to the expanse of a system of philosophy. The two points are clearly connected as parts of the same systematic project. The notion of method designates, for Hegel, this constellation of issues; not only the question of how the succession of logical forms is immanently developed or deduced throughout the logic, but also the question of how, retrospectively, one shall reflect upon such a succession and how this reflection shall be used in order to produce knowledge, self-knowledge, and science. Method is both the immanent production of logical forms and the final comprehensive knowledge of the whole process of logical deduction.' * Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York. 1 As Hegel puts it, method is mode or Art und Weise of both being and knowing. 6 G.W.F. HEGEL, Wissenschafi der Logik II, in WERKE (Eva Moldenhauer & Hans Marcus Michel eds., 1986) [hereinafter 6 WISSENSCHAr]. All translations, in either the text or the footnotes, are the author's translations. Translations are offset by brackets. 203

2 204 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS J. [Vol. 3:203 This is the interpretive framework within which I want to discuss the general problem posed by the last chapter of the Wissenschaft der Logik, the chapter on the absolute Idea. Simply put: Why does Hegel's logic finish in the way it finishes, namely, with an account of the absolute method? Or, Why is the absolute idea developed into absolute method? And what constitutes the necessity of this conclusion? The famous (or infamous) beginning of the logic has been the source of never ending attempts at interpretation and the difficult transition to nature has been criticized as no other part of the logic. Instead, I want to focus on the far less discussed problem of its conclusion-the problem of the end (das Ende). Why and how must the logic come to an end, and to which end? And more generally (and methodologically): What is the end (taken absolutely or schlechthin)-das Ende? Thus, my topic is the connection between logic, method, and end. It is only having cleared this connection that we can gain an access to the further problem of the transition to nature. The last chapter of Hegel's Logic has not ceased to intrigue me despite the number of studies I have dedicated to different aspects of its argument during the last ten years. Somehow, the analysis of any section of the Logic has always brought me back to its conclusion. In the following considerations I build on the results of my previous research, in particular on the following three theses: 1. Hegel replaces the metaphysical Absolute with a theory of absolute cognition whereby knowledge of the Absolute turns into absolute knowing. He replaces the ontology of the ens absolutus with a logic of the absolute idea as absolute method. The term absolute for Hegel is no longer substantive but only adjective, as such absoluteness is predicated of each one of the final moments of his system: absolute knowing (absolutes Wissen), absolute idea (absolute Idee), absolute spirit (absoluter Geist). 2. The development of the absolute idea is determined by its initial definition as result of the previous logical movement. Accordingly, the absolute idea arises from the overcoming of the (Kantian) split between theory and praxis; it displays the identity of theoretical and practical idea, as well as the unity of the idea of life and the idea of knowledge. 3. The absolute method is the method of the system of philosophy. The method is in charge of laying the foundation for the system-

3 2004] THE END OF HEGEL 'S LOGIC atic development of philosophical thinking and knowing. In this way, it effects the transition from Logic to Realphilosophie. 2 These three theses, which I take here for granted, define the background of the position I am now going to outline. However, I will further elaborate on them, approaching them from the different perspective of the issue of the conclusion of the Logic-the issue of the necessity of a conclusion, as well as the issue of the specific necessary conclusion that Hegel has to offer. I have mentioned the very general question I presently want to ask and the set of background assumptions through which I am asking it. I finally want to add that the specific direction taken by the following analysis is determined by a more particular concern that I see concentrated in an enigmatic passage placed at the very beginning of the chapter on the absolute idea. 3 My present considerations are a sort of commentary on this passage. I attempt to frame the issue of the method of Hegel's logic in terms of the problem raised by that passage. After having presented the absolute idea as the result of the immediately preceding movement whereby the idea is defined as the rational concept unifying theoretical and practical idea, life, and cognition, Hegel characterizes it as the form of personality truly reconciled with its other as with its own objectivity. In this way, the absolute idea has reached the highest form of truth. This fundamental characterization of the idea is the starting point of the final movement of the logic. Hegel gives this sense of culmination by construing a radical opposition to the absolute idea (and notice that he has just claimed that despite its multiple conciliations, the absolute idea bears "in itself the highest opposition"). 4 Hegel declares: "All the rest is error, confusion, opinion, endeavor, arbitrariness, and transitoriness; only the absolute idea is being, imperishable life, self-knowing truth, and is all truth." 5 This passage is puzzling for more than one reason. First, it is syntactically construed in a curious 2 See Angelica Nuzzo, The Idea of 'Method' in Hegel's Science of Logic - A Method for Finite Thinking and Absolute Knowing, 39/40 BULL. OF THE HEGEL SOC'Y OF GREAT BRITAIN 1 (1999); THE TRUTH OF "ABSOLUTES WISSEN" IN HEGEL'S 'PHENOMENOLOGY OF SPIRIT' (A. Denker ed., 2003); ANGELIcA Nuzzo, SYSTEM (2003). 3 6 WISSENSCHAFT, supra note 1, at Id. at Id. ("Alles ibrige ist Irrtum, TrUbheit, Meinung, Streben, Willkiir und Vergiinglichkeit; die absolute Idee allein ist Sein, unvergangliches Leben, sich wissende Wahrheit, und ist alle Wahrheit.") (emphasis added).

4 206 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS J. [Vol. 3:203 way. The opposing member somehow precedes that to which it is opposed; the rest precedes that in relation to which what is left is understood as rest-a resulting caput mortuum brings forth the absolute idea as all truth. Yet the caput mortuum is obtained from the idea. Second, this passage has always struck me as being highly un-dialectic, and undialectic in the most implausible place within the logic. Hegel's main point in this last chapter is to establish the absolute idea as an omnipervasive structure-bergreifend, he says 6 -that includes all opposition within itself. Its absolute character is determined precisely by the fact that there is no exteriority or externality opposed to it. 7 Moreover, the absolute idea as method is defined as the force of infinite power from which nothing can be declared independent, to which everything with no exception is by necessity subjugated (unterworfen). 8 How can these claims be reconciled with the notion that there is indeed something, a whole realm of negativity, that remains as an uncomfortable rest (fibrig) placed in front of the absolute idea and opposed to it in a sort of un-dialectical Manichaeism-all truth against all the rest? How can we accept that this discarded realm must somehow present itself in this external opposition in order for the absolute idea to shine in all its transparency and might as the omni-pervasive and comprehensive truth, as all truth? Is this a passage that we need to ignore if we want to move on to the characterization of the dialectical nature of Hegel's method? Or shall we instead acknowledge that herein Hegel somehow provides the key for the following development of the absolute idea to method, and then to the end of the logic as foundation of the philosophical system? If the latter is the case, how does such development take place? My suggestion in these considerations is that this passage formulates the specific problem that Hegel's idea of method sets out to solve. But there are additional important questions that this passage raises and that we should be able to address, as well. What does Hegel indicate with the "all the rest (alles Ubrige)" immediately declared error, confusion, opinion, arbitrariness? And where is this rest systematically located? 6 Id at See Andr6 Doz, Le sens du mot "absolu' chez Hegel, 1 PARCOURS PHILOSOPHIQUES, (2001). 8 6 WSSENSCHAFT, supra note 1, at Id. at 549.

5 2004] THE END OF HEGEL 'S LOGIC 207 In the following analysis, I address the problems posed by this passage, engaging with the text in an interlocutory way. I will formulate and reformulate a series of questions in order to cover the entire development of the last chapter of the logic, which, I show, should be considered Hegel's answer to the issue raised by that initial passage-the issue of das Ende. I want to pursue the following thesis: Hegel's absolute method is not only the immanent way in which the logical process is step-by-step generated and the way in which this immanent production is successively presented-method is not only Entwicklungsweise and Darstellungsweise. In the logic, the method constituting the end of the process is also the way in which the entire logic is finally reflected upon and retrospectively re-construed in order to be used in cognition and action by speculative thinking. The method as conclusion of the logic offers a synoptic reconstruction of the entire logical process that breaks with the sequence in which its forms have been immanently generated so far. Such reconstruction proceeds according to the syllogism of the method; by reading the process out of sequence, so to speak, it grounds the necessity of the logic as system-a necessity that the sequence of the logical forms could still not guarantee. Thus, Hegel concludes the logic in a way that reminds one of the conclusion of the Encyclopaedia with the three syllogisms. At the end of the logic, the absolute method provides the only speculative knowledge of what the logic proved itself to be. To this extent, the method is a first occurrence of the noesis noeseos (thought thinking itself) that seals the Encyclopaedia. I. THE ABSOLUTE IDEA AND "ALL THE REST.. Following a general strategy employed throughout the logic, the absolute idea's first definition is a genetic one. Thereby continuity with the preceding process is established. As a result, the absolute idea cumulatively recapitulates the whole development of the subjective logic displaying the trajectory that developed the concept to idea by realizing it. And yet, in the absolute idea, which results from the previous logical movement, such movement has not yet reached its conclusion. The genetic deduction of the concept of absolute idea is necessary, but not sufficient, to determine the absolute idea to method (or to absolute form). In order for this final stage of the logic to be presented as a new moment requiring its own internal development up to the point that secures the end of the entire first sphere of the system of philosophy-in order for this objective to be reached-a radical discontinuity must be

6 208 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS J. [Vol. 3:203 created. This is a particularly difficult and particularly interesting task precisely because the absolute idea seems to be by definition the sum total (or the Inbegriffl of the logical process. Ultimately, the absolute idea is presented by Hegel as the logic itself. But if this identity between absolute idea and logical science holds true, what else can the idea be (or be developed into) at this point? How can the necessary and non-tautological relation between absolute idea and method be established? If, following the traditional (and Kantian) division of the logical science in a Doctrine of Elements and a Doctrine of Method, we want to claim that the idea is method, it can be method only as external form, as a form externally juxtaposed to the material previously deduced in its completeness and adding nothing to it. But Hegel programmatically rejects this view. On Hegel's account, the end of the logic is reached by the absolute method, not by the absolute idea that results from the for going movement. The argument at this point is the following: the fact that the absolute idea is identical to the development of the logical science (is its one and only object)' contradicts its absolute value-it does not constitute it. To this extent, the idea bears indeed the highest opposition within itself: presenting itself as absolute the idea is not truly absolute. In order for the last moment of the logic to prove itself really absolute, it must be demonstrated first that the idea is not coextensive with everything (everything there is and can be thought), and second that what constitutes the absolute idea is not restricted to the preceding movement. In other words, if the absolute idea is the highest truth and "all truth," and if "the absolute idea alone is being"'" (in the sense of truth), not everything there is and can be thought is truth or being (in the sense of truth). Neither on individual logical moments nor on the sum total of the deduced forms truth and being can be predicated as they can be predicated on the absolute idea-namely, in an absolute way. In point of fact, the claim "the absolute idea alone is being"' 12 implies a fundamental restriction of focus that radically outdistances the last moment of the logic from all the preceding ones-individually, as well as collectively considered. The absolute idea is radically different from all that 10 Id. at Id. at 549 (emphasis added). For contrast see the curious syntactic construction of the opening of the first moment of the Absolute in the logic of essence: "Das Absolute ist nicht nur das Sein, noch auch das Wesen." Id. at 187 ([The absolute is not only being nor also essence.]); see also id. at Id. at 549.

7 20041 THE END OF HEGEL "S LOGIC precedes it. "Being, pure being" with which the logic begins (or has begun) is, in a sense, a more comprehensive concept than that of the absolute idea at the beginning of the last chapter of the logic. And yet, the absolute idea also comprehends, and at the same time exceeds, what has been developed so far, so as to put itself in the position of uniqueness that allows it to bring the logic to an end. Its focus is both narrower and broader than that of the previous development (the absolute idea is concrete universality and the singularity of personality). In an important way, das Logische is only one side or one aspect of the absolute idea. 13 Even though in its universality the absolute idea embraces all particulars, it displays a "not yet (noch nicht)" 14 that now calls for further investigation. It is only in this way that the end of the logic can return back to its beginning and close the circle of the science (but this will be clear only at the end of the story). The radical difference or discontinuity separating the absolute idea from the preceding process is thereby indicated. In order for the last movement of the logic to accomplish the "extension" 15 of das Logische to the form of the system-and even to the "system of totality" 16 -the absolute idea must be first circumscribed so as to include, and simultaneously exclude, all preceding forms, so as to be identical with and radically different from them. It follows that the absolute idea as the result of the preceding movement must somehow be able to place this whole movement outside of itself. Hence, the idea's opposition to "all the rest." The absolute idea is the one and only point of truth and being against which all the rest is nothing else but "error, confusion, opinion, endeavor, arbitrariness, and transitoriness." Thereby, a first sense of the specific absoluteness of the idea is gained-the etymological sense of the absolutus justified. The idea is separated or disconnected from the preceding movement (from the movement from which it results) in order to recuperate it in a new comprehensive perspective. This is the condition for the further advancement that determines the absolute idea to method and that proves it omni-pervasive by extending it retrospectively to the circle that reaches the empty beginning. 13 Id. at 550 ("das Logische der absoluten Idee" [the logical of the absolute idea]). 14 Id. 15 Id. at 569 ("Erweiterung" [Extension]); see also id. at 567 ("erweitert.. zu einem System" [extended... to a system]). 16 Id. at 569.

8 210 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS J [Vol. V 3:203 To be sure, the negative rest that separates the idea from the movement that led to it should not be understood ontologically but rather methodologically (the present opposition is no longer the initial identity/ opposition between being and nothing). "All the rest" opposed to the idea that alone is being and truth indicates the whole preceding logical movement that, without the absolute idea as method, is inexorably reduced to mere error, opinion, and transitory untruth. This is the absolute necessity of the last moment of the logic. The opposition between the absolute idea and the negativity of "all the rest" can be viewed as a reductio ad absurdum of the claim that the logic could be concluded with the absolute idea as it results from the preceding movement; or as an indirect refutation of the claim that the method does not really add anything to the logical movement and hence, is a mere external form-a coda to it. The idea is proved really absolute and absolutely necessary if, and only if, without it (or set merely in opposition to it) all preceding forms, and even the logic as a whole, can be reduced to the sheer negativity of that rest (which means precisely that up to this point no real absoluteness has been gained). To this extent, the movement of the absolute idea is necessary because it provides the only true method according to which the logic can be established as true speculative science. The idea is the method that conclusively reconstructs or rethinks, and knows the entire preceding movement as truly speculative, thereby salvaging it from error, opinion, transitoriness, etc. Or, to put it differently, up to the point in which the idea is successfully developed as absolute method, the logic can still fall prey to non-dialectical thinking, external "begriffilose Reflexion," and mere finite knowledge, missing entirely its objective, namely, the foundation of a system of science. In this way, the last chapter of the logic is, indeed, the decisive test of its soundness. Herein the question that we need to address is: How does the method manage to rescue the entire logical development from the possibility of its being hijacked by external reflection? Hegel's new conception of method is the response to a situation of radical risk, the risk that the logic immanently developed up to this point could be reduced to mere error because of its being reframed within a merely instrumental conception of method; the risk that the openness that the absolute idea still displays could be exploited by an inconclusive progress ad infinitum unable to reach an end. Despite the fact that the logical forms have, indeed, been derived all along in an immanent dialectical way, it would

9 2004] THE END OF HEGEL S LOGIC still be possible for the entire logic at this final stage to be appropriated by un-dialectical thinking and reconstructed according to a method that is nothing more than an external form. This possibility would jeopardize the philosophical project which Hegel embraces as early as the project of presenting the absolute as a result. 17 On this project, in turn, hinges his idea of a philosophical system of science grounded on a speculative science of logic. In the logic, at the height of its last chapter, this possibility translates into the failure to bring the logical movement to its necessary end (i.e., into the risk of both an open-ended progress in infinitum and an entirely arbitrary beginning). To sum up our results so far, in order for the absolute idea to become absolute method and hence, to effectively bring the logic to conclusion, the focus of the idea must be restricted, and a radical discontinuity with the entire preceding movement created. The idea alone is being and truth, means that all the rest-all the preceding development of the logic-is reduced to mere opinion and untruth (i.e., is a movement that by no means can claim to be absolute or conclusive). The method is not external form but the necessary culmination and the true foundation of the process. Yet the method can be absolute form only if the preceding movement can be considered as external to it and untrue without it. I now turn to the closer analysis of this latter claim. II. EXTERNAL FoRM AND ABSOLUTE FoRM At stake in this last movement of the logic is the necessity of Hegel's speculative-dialectical idea of method and the thesis that the absolute as end of the process is not just absolute idea but is absolute method as absolute form. The claim here is that only the method can be absolute form. 18 For only the absolute method-none of the intermediary logical moments or the entire preceding process-is able to bring the logical process to its conclusion. If the method is conceived as merely external form enacted by an external un-dialectical reflection, every intermediary moment can, in principle, be posited as absolute, 17 See 3 G.W.F. HEGEL, Phenomenology of Spirit, in WERKE 24 (Eva Moldenhauer & Hans Marcus Michel eds., 1986). 18 For Hegel's argument in the chapter on the Absolute in the logic of essence meant to dismantle the pretension of the Absolute to be really and truly absolute or "absolute form." See 6 WISSENSCHAFT, supra note 1, at 188 ("die Bestimmung des Absoluten ist, die absolute Form zu sein" [the determination of the absolute is to be absolute form]), 194 ("das Absolute" [absolute Form]). In the last chapter of the Logic, Hegel shows that only method can be absolute form. Id. at

10 212 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS J [Vol. 3:203 and consequently the logic can be seen as concluded on occasion of each of those absolutes. But the immanent succession of the logical forms, their necessary dialectical transition into one another, already proved this claim to absoluteness false. In a note to the transition from the true infinite to Fiirsichsein in the logic of being (a note whose principal thesis is taken up again in the note to Sein-fiir-Eins, the first moment of Firsichsein), 19 Hegel formulates the principle of idealism as the key criterion according to which the dialectical-speculative character of every philosophy ought to be assessed. The only crucial point in such an assessment, Hegel notices, is the "question of to what extent is that principle being realized," 20 of how far it has been carried through. This means to assess whether the transition to the following moment has been accomplished or whether, instead, a certain moment is declared absolute and the logical process consequently brought to a halt. It is only in the last chapter of the logic that the method is able to determine how the end of the speculative process can be made. In this case, and in this case only, we can say that the principle of idealism is carried through to the end. Hence, on Hegel's account, the false assumption that each intermediary moment of the process can be posited as an absolute is ultimately predicated on a view of method as merely external form. But if, on the contrary, the true absolute is none of the logical moments (and not even their collection) but only the method according to which each moment and the entire progress is retrospectively reconstructed and known (besides having been generated by it), then each intermediary form, as well as the whole development of all such forms, if posited outside of the absolute method, becomes a merely external, arbitrary, and untrue station in relation to it. In other words, if compared to the absoluteness of the method all the rest is indeed error, confusion, transitoriness, etc. Hence, the demonstrative aim of the last chapter of the logic is to prove that the logical process can achieve its necessary end only in a retrospective reconstruction of the whole logical process that is able to rescue it from the external form that reflection could still impose on it by declaring each moment a possible-yet entirely arbitrary-conclusion. The thesis is: absolute method is absolute form G.W.F. HEGEL, Wissenschaf der Logik I, in WERKE , (Eva Moldenhauer & Hans Marcus Michel eds., 1986) [hereinafter 5 WISSENSCHAFr]. 20 Id. at 172 (emphasis added); see also id. at 178.

11 2004] THE END OF HEGEL'S LOGIC The determinateness [Bestimmtheit] of the idea and the whole course of this determinateness has been the object of the logical sciencefrom which course the absolute idea itself has issued for itself. For itself, however, the idea has shown that the determinateness does not have the figure of a content but is absolutely as form. 2 ' Thereby Hegel spells out the dialectic situation that leads the absolute idea to the first stage of the development of the method. The absolute idea as mere form is method. The determinateness of the idea is the object in fieri of the logic. As topic of the logical movement, however, the determinations that issue from it are not yet determinations of the idea. For the idea is only result. The object of the logic does not exist until the end of the logic is achieved. It is only from the entire development of the logical science that the idea arises in its final absolute determinateness. The idea is here for itself and gains an independent existence whose determinateness can be thematized for the first time. However, this conclusive determinateness somehow comes out as a surprise. If the task, in the case of the metaphysical Absolute (which Hegel ironically exposes in the logic of essence), is to show what the Absolute is, to express it, and to manifest it (the Absolute is Auflerung),22 then with regard to the absolute idea we need to acknowledge that there is no content-expressed and (still) to be expressed. The absolute idea is no content but a mere form, purely self-referential expression with nothing to express except its own formality. This form, indeed an absolute one, is the first side of the method; the method as formal mode (Art und Weise), as modality or mode of being and knowledge at the same time. Thereby the claim that the absolute idea is method corrects Spinoza's metaphysical claim addressed in the logic of essence that the Absolute is mode WISSENSCHAFT, supra note 1, at See id. at 187 ("Es soil aber dargestellt werden, was das Absolute ist." [It must be shown what the absolute is.]). And since such "showing" can be neither a "determining" nor external reflection, it can be only the Absolute's own "Auslegung," namely a pointing to what the absolute is. 23 Id. at 192. The Absolute is attribute and the attribute is only "Art und Weise" namely mode; mode, however, is only exteriority of the Absolute. Id. at 193 ([most exterior exteriority]).

12 214 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS j [Vol. 3:203 III. THE METHOD ACCORDING TO THE FoRM: ANFANG AND FORTGANG The entire development of the logic 24 shows that no content can be assumed as true foundation of the logical development, since, if taken up in this function, it proves to be sheer untruth condemned to a necessary transition to the successive moment. 25 To this extent, the previous logical course set in relation to its result is indeed untrue and transitory. Hegel argues that if a determinate form were to be recognized as the foundation then the "absolute form would relate to it as a merely external and contingent determination" 26 -the absolute form would not be absolute. On the contrary, since no foundation has been encountered so far, and since the method is not a particular content but universal form, the method is "the absolute foundation and the last truth. ''2 7 Hence, it must be first developed according to this formal aspect. Method, Hegel declares, is the movement and activity of the concept that knows of no external resistance or opposition. 28 Method is both "internal and external mode. 29 It is only at this point that the logical movement-previously reduced to a negative rest set against the absolute form-starts to be rethought and reappropriated by the moments of method. In this process the previous development is rearranged according to the logic of the method-first formally, according to the structures of beginning (Anfang) and advancement (Fortgang), and then with regard to the content, according to the moment of Ende. Ultimately, this reflective process yields speculative knowledge of what the logic is. At this point, Hegel presents us with a gesture that is very similar to the one that concludes the Encyclopaedia in the famous three syllogisms. At the end of the logic, the syllogism of the method offers a recollection and final reconstruction or rearrangement of the entire logical development according to a new logic that is the logic of the method, or the logic of the conclusion. Against the force of this final reconstruction-as opposed to the initial position of the absolute idea as a result-nothing can present itself as an impenetrable rest. 30 The development of the method 24 Id. at 551 ([all figures of a given content]). 25 Id. 26 Id. 27 Id. 28 Id. 29 Id. 30 See id. at

13 2004] THE END OF HEGEL "S LOGIC shows the way in which the previous logical content must be reappropriated in order to constitute the system laying the foundation of speculative science. In following this development, I will bring to the fore the way Hegel responds point by point to the challenge of external reflection, thereby undermining the possibility that the logic be transformed in a process of triumphing opinion, arbitrariness, Streben, and transitoriness. In the final movement of the absolute method, truth takes the place of opinion and necessity replaces arbitrariness, while the circularity of the end reaching back to the beginning defeats the open-ended Streben of the bad infinite that, once it has begun moving forward, is unable to find its necessary conclusion, and moving backwards, is unable to reach an ultimate foundation. The end of the process finally dismantles the possibility that a non-dialectical conception of method could still appropriate what the logic has presented up to the absolute idea. In articulating the structure of the method in its different moments, Hegel proposes to rearrange the entire logical process according to these new forms in the syllogism of the method. The task is to show that only by re-reading and systematizing the logic in this way are the dangers of arbitrariness, error, Streben, etc., eliminated and speculative knowledge of the logic finally achieved. The method that institutes the logic as speculative foundation of science can finally become a method of the system of philosophy. Thus, only by reaching its end can the logic lead on to a Realphilosophie-a philosophy of nature and spirit. The first moment of the method taken in its formal aspect is the beginning (Anfang). Methodologically, there is a formal beginning of the logic as a whole and there are different intermediary beginnings along its development. What is it that structurally and formally characterizes the beginning as such-no matter what the beginning is in its content-determination (it can be alternatively "Sein, Wesen, Allgemeinheit," 31 or it can be "a content of being or of essence or of the concept" 32 )? On Hegel's account, the general problem of the beginning is to overcome the arbitrariness to which instrumental conceptions of method inevitably condemn it. 33 In its content, the beginning (the beginning as such as well as all beginnings) is, indeed, characterized by being an "immediate (Unmittelbares)" that has the form of "abstract 31 Id. at 568 ([being, essence, universality]). 32 Id. at Id. ([arbitrarily]); see also id. at 549.

14 216 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS J [Vol. 3:203 universality." 34 As moment of the method, however, "the beginning has no other determinateness than this: being simple and abstract." 35 But how does the simple immediacy and abstract universality of the beginning translate into a methodological issue? The question, for Hegel, concerns the (reflective) meaning of the claim that the beginning is simple and abstract. Once the beginning has been made and the logic developed out of it, the issue is: How should such a beginning be understood in order for the logic to be able to reach its conclusion? In other words, the question is no longer the one that Hegel posed at the beginning: "With what must the science begin? 36 In the last chapter of the logic, Hegel's suggestion is that immediacy and abstractness are not characters that define the content of a certain beginning (not even those of Sein, reines Sein which is lack of all content). Immediacy and abstractness are rather the very modality with which logical thinking begins to know what logical thinking is. At the level of the method, Hegel's concern is not Sein as beginning (or what should constitute/constitutes/has constituted the beginning) but the way in which the beginning is made in order for the end to issue. 37 Hegel notices that external reflection, while embracing the claim that the beginning is simple and abstract put forth by speculative thinking, accepts such beginning only for the sake of a promised-opined-content, which it strives to further develop. Thereby, the beginning is transformed into an arbitrary assumption (or into a provisional or merely hypothetical beginning) made only in order to satisfy the Streben of thinking aimed at moving on away from it. Moreover, mere opinion in its lack of consciousness (Bewufitlosigkeit) defines the simple and abstract of the beginning as a content that is actually given ("es gibt"), 38 either in reality or in thinking. On the contrary, the method, which is the "consciousness of the concept," 39 understands the simplicity and abstractness of the beginning as its mere formality, namely, as the objective, immanent form that is in itself defective (mangelhaft) and endowed with the drive (Trieb) to realize the concept. In other words, the illusion of Streben affecting the begin- 34 Id. at Id. at WISSENSCHAFT, supra note 19, at It is certainly true that the two perspectives somehow coincide. However, they do coincide only at the end of the logic WISSENSCHAFT, supra note 1, at Id.; see also id. at 557 ([certainty of the concept]).

15 2004] THE END OF HEGEL 'S LOGIC ning (but truly affecting external reflection) is overcome once we recognize that such Trieb is nothing else but the very immanent form of the beginning as moment of the method. Granted that the beginning is simple, immediate, and abstract, if we do not acknowledge that Anfang is not a content that happens to be given to thought, or that thinking chooses in order to make its beginning, but is instead moment of the absolute method (the logic must begin or have begun since we have reached its end), the beginning is destined to be arbitrary, a mere striving, a sheer opinion. From this incorrect view it also follows that the advancement is a mere Ciberflufl lacking all necessity, 4 " that thinking is carried on only by an external striving that would be utterly superfluous were it not for the unfortunate emptiness of the beginning. The beginning could very well have been the absolute in which case there would have been no need to proceed at all. Thereby the first moment of the method leads to the second. The second moment of the method considered in its formality is the advancement (Fortgehen). The beginning is beginning of a process, an "Anfang des Fortgehens und der Entwicklung." 4 Here, as well, the absolute method is opposed to the way in which finite, mere searching knowledge construes its advancement. Such a way, Hegel suggests, entails a fundamental error. It reveals thinking's abirren, the merely random searching about with no direction and no necessity with which thinking tries to escape the emptiness of the beginning. To be sure, the immanent development of the logic (or what the logic has achieved up to this point) has already responded to this erroneous way of constructing science. Now, however, the method has to thwart the further possibility that external reflection may reconceptualize the preceding movement according to that erroneous view of the advancement. This is an important point because it indirectly dismantles so many interpretations of Hegel's logic. An example is offered by the teleological construction of the logic as a movement in which progress is made only because a certain result has to be obtained-whereby the anticipated end result would allegedly retroactively guide the constitution of the process away from the beginning. Arguing against this position, Hegel contends that, in order for the advancement to be made, thinking should not aim at anything else or look for anything else besides attending to a firm consideration of the determinations of things "in and for 40 Id. at Id. at 556.

16 218 CARD OZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS J [Vol. 3:203 themselves." 4 2 Interestingly, Streben and Trieb, for Hegel, indicate the formal character of the beginning (and even that of the end), not the character of the advancement. For Hegel, progress is made by staying where one is, not by looking away, aiming at something else. Hegel expresses this character of the method by saying that "the absolute method is analytic." 4 3 Even though the beginning, as such, has no determination and even though there is no proper searching in the method, the method finds in the universal of the beginning the (different or new) determination with which progress is made. This dialectical paradox reveals the synthetic nature of the method. The consideration of the logical form in and for itself-a consideration that has no further aim or need-indicates the otherness that necessarily resides within that very same form; 44 it points to the fact that each determination is as such a contradiction, and consequently entails a necessary Uibergehen. 45 Fortgang is a transition accomplished without aiming at anything else but at what one already has, because what one has is a contradiction. Thus the second moment of the absolute method brings to the fore its dialectic negativity. As moment of the absolute method, dialectic loses the appearance of contingency and exteriority that afflicts ancient dialectic, skepticism, and Kant's philosophy alike. 46 On Hegel's account, dialectic is the "standpoint in which a universal first, considered in and for itself reveals itself as the other of itself." 47 Throughout the development of the logic, the dialectic of logical determination has been responsible for the immanent construction of the logical itinerary. In considering dialectic as the second moment of the form of the method-that is, as the way of knowing or conceptualizing what the logic is and has achieved-hegel suggests that a last step still needs to be accomplished in order to fully understand the force of dialectical thinking. At this point, dialectic regards the way in which the entire previous development is re-conceptualized-the way in which the progressive sequence of its forms is redesigned according to the logic of the first, the second, and the third/fourth moments of method; namely, the logic of the immediate, mediation, and the mediated term. This is the final perspective offered by the method. The question that Hegel asks is 42 Hegel refers to Plato, id. at 557, and then implicitly to Kant, id. at Id. at Id. 45 Id. at Id. at 558; see also id. at Id. at 561.

17 2004] THE END OF HEGEL'S LOGIC the following: What is it that all second moments of the logic-despite their specific content-structurally or formally have in common? The (short) answer to this question is: they are contradictions whereby advancement is made and a transition effected. What interests me herein is, more specifically, Hegel's argument in favor of the ulterior step that the dialectical moment of the method must undertake beyond the immanent production of the logical forms that took place throughout the preceding sequence. In these conclusive pages, the method offers a'synoptic view of the logic. In this synopsis, dialectic must be recognized at work even when the logical succession is erased and reconfigured according to the different order dictated by the method's syllogism. The immanent development of the logical forms grounds its necessity and partial truth with regard to their respective positions within the sequence but does not justify the necessity of the whole itinerary-and in particular does not justify the end of the entire development. At the beginning of the absolute idea chapter, 8 such itinerary appears, as it were, as the negative rest lacking necessity and truth, and still opposed to the idea, still needing to be subjugated (unterworfen) 49 to the method. It is only the reconfiguration of the logic according to the syllogism of the method that eventually grounds the necessity of the whole logical science as a system. A methodological, synoptic reading of the logic out of sequence must be performed in order for it to reach its conclusion in the figure of a circular system. Thus, the second dialectical step of the method reduces the necessity of the logical progression to mere contingency and thereby negates it; then replaces that progression with the different sequence dictated by the syllogism of the method, and finally sanctions the true necessity of the logical development by leading it to the form of the system. In discussing the new synoptic sequence of second moments all characterized by the immanent negativity of dialectic, Hegel draws the following conclusion: "Hence, if the negative, the determinate, the relation, judgment, and all the determinations that fall under this second moment do not appear for themselves already as the contradiction and as dialectic, it is merely because of the insufficiency of thinking that does not bring together its thoughts." 5 " Thereby, Hegel formulates the further point that the method makes in addition to the immanent pro- 48 Id. at Id. at Id. at 562.

18 220 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY d- ETHICS J. [Vol. 3:203 duction of the sequence of logical forms realized up to the determination of the absolute idea. It is not sufficient to bring out the succession of logical determinations, which is what the logic has done throughout its development. In addition, it is necessary to bring together those forms (synoptically as it were), recognizing their belonging to the second, dialectical moment of the method. Now, the activity of gathering together (Zusammenbringen) is precisely the activity of syllogism. Hegel's suggestion is that it is possible to have followed through the entire development of the logic in the immanent necessity produced by the inner contradiction of each moment, and yet be unable to recognize what constitutes the dialectic (or the advancement) proper to the method of the logical sequence; still be unable to understand what the logic as a whole has achieved as a result. Thus, in order for the logic to reach its conclusion in the form of the system, the logical progression needs to be rethought so that its determinations are brought together according to the syllogism of the method. In this way, the method provides the "cognition of the result (Erkennen des Resultats)" produced by the logical development. 5 ' At stake is the fundamental issue of knowing what the logic has done or what the logic properly is. Such dialecticspeculative knowledge is method. Hegel's claim that the method is both analytic and synthetic (the analytic and the synthetic moment constituting the two premises of the syllogism) 52 means precisely that the method does not simply analyze retrospectively the given determinations and the process that has produced them, and in which they previously have been presented. 53 This is because in the method, analysis yields a result that is different from the one previously obtained (the end of the logic is not the absolute idea but the moment of the end itself). Properly, there is no result to analyze when the analysis of the result sets out to its task. The result arises instead from analysis revealing itself as synthesis. That is, in its being analytic, the method is synthetic as it adds something new to the preceding development. Cognition of the result (the logic) produces the end result (the end of the logic). 51 Id. at Id. at 563, Id. at 566 ([It can initially seem that such knowing of the result is an analysis of it, and consequently that those determinations and their process must lay apart from each other.]).

19 2004] THE END OF HEGEL'S LOGIC IV. THE METHOD ACCORDING TO THE CONTENT: SYSTEM AND END The method disrupts the immanent logical sequence and establishes a new relationship among logical determinations and their foundation. 54 Simply put, what comes last is truly the first; only the method is the absolute; method is the foundation of the entire logical development-of both beginning and advancement. 55 But when the method is recognized as the foundation of the logical progression, this progression is reshaped according to a new methodological relation, namely, the relation between beginning and advancement. At this point, the content entails for the first time the consideration of the method. 56 The method is articulated according to its own content and this leads to the "extension" 57 of the method "to a system." 58 At stake now is the issue of the conclusion of the logic (das Ende). Hegel's suggestion is that the method is speculative-dialectical knowledge of the material produced by the immanent process of logical determination. Method is not just immanent production but also reflective cognition-the only true speculative cognition-of the result of the syllogism. The formal syllogism of the method is deduction of the content. 5 9 In the new relation that the method establishes among the logical forms by rearranging them according to its moments in the comprehensive structure of the syllogism, the beginning is finally connected to the result of the advancement. 60 Thereby the beginning is no longer immediate, but rather determinate; it is not mere form but demonstrated content, while the advancement proceeds to and from the mediated standpoint of a new beginning. And yet, at this point, the possibility of a disruptive, non-dialectical reading of the results of the method surfaces again, thereby disclosing a double threat to the conclusiveness of the logical development. The "begriffilose Reflexion ' 61 is 54 Id. at Id. at 551 ([absolute foundation and last truth]), 569 ([The universal constitutes the foundation; the advancement therefore should not only be taken as a running from one to the other.]). 56 Id. at 567 ([This is the point where the content of knowledge as such first enters the circle of the consideration.]). 57 Id. at 567, Id. at Id. 60 Id. 61 Id.

20 222 CARDOZO PUB. LAW, POLICY & ETHICS j [Vol. 3:203 ready to encroach on the results of dialectic, transforming the mediation of the beginning into the open-ended regress of an inconclusive proof and turning the conquest of a new beginning into an advancement that stretches forward ad infinitum. 62 Against this final possibility-and against this ultimate error- Hegel's absolute method construes the argument in which the logic will reach its ultimate conclusion. Only the structure of the system is able to defeat with its circularity the linear progression of the bad infinite for which no end is in view and no beginning is a necessary beginning. (This is yet another consequence of the claim that sets a certain logical form as the absolute, or as the foundation, and reduces method to external form.) Herein, the difference that separates the formal moments of beginning and advancement from the moment of the end comes to the fore. While external reflection still operates within the methodological framework of a beginning and an advancement, it can by no means provide an end to the process. The end is the uniquely speculative moment of the absolute method. As Hegel puts it at the end of the Encyclopedia logic, "the infinite progress dissolves itself in the end" (l'st sich in das Ende [aujj). 6 3 The end is the methodological construction of the logic to "system of totality" 64 -to "circle of circles. " ' 6 5 The opposition between absolute method and begrifflose Reflexion reveals how the speculative method is at work in bringing beginning and advancement to the necessary end of the logical movement. First, unlike external reflection, the method determines the formal indeterminateness of all beginnings (of such "beginnings such as being, essence, universality") 66 to their very content and, indeed, to their determinateness (formal indeterminateness is precisely the content-determination of the beginning).67 From this the contradiction arises that effects the mediation of the immediate beginning and, with it, brings the process to the methodological moment of the advancement. 68 Second, having the method as its permanent foundation, the advancement is no longer a 62 Id G.W.F. HEGEL, Enzyclopaedia, in WERKE 242 (Eva Moldenhauer & Hans Marcus Michel eds., 1986) WISSENSCHAFr, supra note 1, at Id. at Id. at Id. ([But the indeterminateness that those logical beginnings have as their only content is itself that which constitutes their determinateness.]). 68 Id